Trip
by Juliet Atharis
Summary: Lux Lisbon's effect on Trip Fontaine
1. Lux

I, of course, own nothing from The Virgin Suicides (the novel or the movie). But sometimes I wish I owned Josh Hartnett....  
  
Trip  
  
Chapter 1: Lux  
  
He couldn't believe what he had just done. He had just left the girl of his dreams alone and cold on the school's football field.  
  
Wow, Trip, you're really living up to your "love 'em and leave 'em" motto, he thought, feeling slightly angry with himself. He started the walk home, shocking himself with the thought that he really didn't care how Lux got home. All the tension he'd been wanting to release for the past few weeks was gone, and now he wanted nothing to do with Lux Lisbon.  
  
He didn't know why.  
  
Up until about half an hour ago, he'd been madly, passionately in love with her. He tried to think of what went wrong. When they reached the gym for the Homecoming dance, they'd gone under the bleachers and shared a bottle of peach schnapps. He'd taught her how to drink it; he took a sip and, without swallowing, kissed her with an open mouth. The drink passed from his mouth to hers, and she swallowed, giggling at the drops that had spilled on her chin. She had returned the gesture, and the bottle had been passed to her sister and Joe Hill Conley. Lux's sister (Trip couldn't remember her name; then again, she was hardly the object of his focus) had initially refused the drink, but Lux had chided her until she drank. She and Joe pressed their mouths together, but Joe seemed to be the only one enjoying it. Lux's sister seemed frightened. Then his and Lux's names had been announced over the microphone. They were the Homecoming King and Queen. Nonchalantly, they made their way out from under the bleachers and up onto the stage, where Lux accepted her tiara. Trip declined to wear his crown and simply clutched it in his hand. After they had danced their obligatory King and Queen dance, Trip had taken Lux out into the hallway for some privacy. This was where he had begun to coax her.  
  
"I can't, my dad...." she had said.  
  
"Just tell 'im you had to put your crown in your locker," he had cajoled.  
  
It didn't take her long to agree. Taking her hand, he led her outside towards the football field. He knew very well what he wanted, and he was sure Lux did as well. He'd told her things about the field: here he had knocked a guy down, there he had caught a pass, but all this was meaningless. With a wicked mental grin he led her to the endzone. It was there that they stopped, where he grabbed onto her shoulders and kissed her with a wild passion, where she kissed him back, and where they fell to the ground, trying to touch every inch of each other.  
  
"Touchdown," he thought as he pushed her skirt up above her waist. He stared into her eyes, dark in the night, as his hands found the waistband of her panties. He asked permission with his eyes, and Lux granted him permission by stretching up her neck and kissing him. She moved her hands south on his body and worked on his pants. When they were satisfactorily unclothed, he kissed her hard on the mouth, and for what seemed like an eternity, Trip was doing what he had been wanting to do for the past few weeks. After it was over, Lux curled up next to him and closed her eyes, falling asleep quickly. That was when Trip had gotten up and left.  
  
"It wasn't fun anymore," Trip thought aloud. That was why he felt he didn't love Lux anymore. He had gotten what he wanted, and it wasn't exciting to not have her anymore.  
  
He reached his front door and looked behind him, realizing that even if he did want to go back to Lux, it was far too late to worry about it. And now he knew he really did want to go back to Lux. He knocked hard on the door and waited for either his dad or Donald to open it. His dad was the one to let him in. Wordlessly, Trip went past his father and into his bedroom, closing the door behind him. He lay on the bed where he had seduced so many girls, now wanting to seduce only Lux, and stared at the ceiling. If he hadn't been so ashamed to, he would have cried. 


	2. Longing

Same "I don't own anything" rules apply....  
  
Trip  
  
Chapter 2: Longing  
  
Trip thought he was going to see Lux at school again. When neither she nor any of her sisters showed up, worry clutched at his stomach, but he told himself that they probably all came down with something from being out in the cold all night.  
  
Especially Lux.  
  
Trip was finding that his thoughts were very often turning to Lux, and they inevitably turned into thoughts of guilt for leaving her alone on the football field. He was haunted by her; every blonde girl he saw in the halls had Lux's form superimposed over hers for a split second. He looked anxiously around every classroom, hoping to catch a glimpse of her hair, her leg, her crooked smile, anything. When none of the girls were at school the next day, Trip began to worry.  
  
He stopped Joe Hill Conley in the hallway during passing period. "Have you seen Lux lately?" he asked.  
  
Joe shrugged. "Naw, man, I haven't even seen her sister. None of 'em have been at school the past couple days."  
  
"So I noticed. Thanks, man," Trip said, leaving Joe.  
  
Joe did not help to ease Trip's anxiety. Trip continued to glance around classrooms and stare at blonde girls, hoping that Lux would materialize. The girls he stared at would smile and twirl their hair around their fingers, and when Trip's gaze left them, they would swoon at having made eye contact with Trip Fontaine.  
  
* * *  
  
The next day, Trip found out the news that was spreading like wildfire: The Lisbon girls would not be returning to school at all. Mrs. Lisbon, in an attempt to crack down on her daughters after Lux's failure to make curfew, had locked all four of the girls in the house and refused to let them out.  
  
Trip's heart sank immediately when he heard. His hope of ever seeing Lux again was dashed.  
  
The rest of the day dragged by. Everything was moving as slow as if it had been dunked into molasses. Trip himself moved with an aching slowness. Everything around him was fuzzy. He didn't make eye contact with any of the dozens of girls who were falling all over themselves to look at him. He moved as if dazed, his mind concentrating on only one word. "Lux," his mind screamed over and over. He would never see her again.  
  
* * *  
  
For the second time, Trip consulted his father and Donald about Lux. He related most of the details to them, and asked them if they thought that he had really loved Lux at all.  
  
"It appears to me that you only liked her before the....incident on the football field, but now I think you really love her. If you ache for her so much, more than you ever have for any other girl, you must love her," his father said.  
  
Trip nodded, agreeing. It had to be true. He really did love Lux Lisbon. And he had to find a way to see her again. 


	3. Crash and Burn

I *wish* I was talented and creative enough to come up with something as good as The Virgin Suicides, but alas, it is not mine. Ownership honors go to Jeffrey Eugenides, Sofia Coppola, and technically Kirsten Dunst, James Woods, Kathleen Turner, Josh Hartnett, et al.  
  
Trip  
  
Chapter 3: Crash and Burn  
  
The note came (apologetically) from Chase Buell. It was in Trip's mailbox, sealed in an envelope with a letter from Chase himself, apologizing about the second note's content. Trip read the note with a crushed heart.  
  
"Dear whoever, tell Trip I'm over him. He's a creep. Guess Who."  
  
Shit. He hadn't counted on this. Hadn't counted on Lux not returning his love. He was so certain that Lux was as madly in love with him as he was with her. The note he held in his hand, scribbled with a purple pen, was the final blow.  
  
He slowly walked back into his house, into his bedroom, and sank down onto his bed. All of his fantasies about having Lux in this room with him vanished, as if they were a flame blown out by a sudden sharp wind. He fell back onto his pillows and stared at his ceiling dejectedly.  
  
No use telling his father about this.  
  
There was a knock on his bedroom door, and he considered telling whoever was there to fuck off and leave him alone. But he didn't have the will to speak, so he stayed silent. The person on the other side of the door, hearing no response, came in.  
  
It was Donald. "Trip? You okay?"  
  
Trip grunted.  
  
"Is it that girl?"  
  
Trip sat up, surprised that Donald had hit on it so quickly.  
  
"It wasn't hard to tell," Donald said, reading Trip's face. He noticed the paper in Trip's hand. "Can I see?"  
  
Trip handed it over, and Donald read it quickly.  
  
"Pretty bad," he said, handing the note back to Trip.  
  
Trip nodded and crumpled the paper in his fist.  
  
"Well, now you have to ask yourself if she's worth continuing the chase," Donald said.  
  
"She is," Trip croaked out, "but she doesn't want to be chased. Not by me, anyway."  
  
"Then let her go. 'If you love something, set it free.'" With that old adage, Donald left the room, confident that he'd helped Trip solve his problem.  
  
But Trip didn't want to set Lux free. He wanted to keep her with him forever.  
  
* * *  
  
Trip's way of accepting Lux's rejection was sex. He got his hands on every golden-haired girl he could. He usually mentally twisted around a feature on each of the girls to make it look like something on Lux. If a girl smiled in a similar way to Lux, Trip would use his charm to win her over and into his bed. Madly, he wondered if Lux knew about all this. Maybe, he thought, if she knew he was sleeping with all these girls because he wished they were her, she'd come back to him. But he never heard anything from Lux, or, for that matter, one of the group of boys who worshipped her.  
  
This new girl in his bed had eyes that slightly resembled Lux's. What's more, she even asked him questions about her.  
  
"What was Lux like?" "Was she really stuck up, or was she just shy?" "What was up with her little sister?"  
  
Trip didn't want to answer her, and he kissed her hard on the mouth to silence her. When they were done, the girl got out of the bed and slipped into her clothes. She smiled at Trip, tucked her hair behind her ear, and left. Trip lay flat on his back, contemplating the ceiling and seeing Lux's form there, smiling, batting her eyes, blowing him kisses. He rolled over onto his stomach and folded his arms under his head.  
  
He was on the verge of sleep when there was a frantic knock on his door. Trip jumped, alarmed at the urgency. The door burst open and his father stood there, eyes wide.  
  
"Trip? You know that girl Lux that you love?"  
  
Of course, Trip thought grumpily. But he sensed the anxiety in his father's voice and sat up straight in bed.  
  
"This is going to be hard to say...." Trip's father began.  
  
"What is it, Dad?" Trip asked, a million thoughts running through his head.  
  
"Lux and her sisters committed suicide last night," his father said.  
  
Trip felt as though someone had slugged him in the gut. "All of them?" he whispered.  
  
His father nodded. "One by hanging, one by pills, one by oven, and one by sitting in a running car in a closed garage," he counted them off.  
  
"How--how did Lux die?" Trip asked.  
  
"I don' think I should--"  
  
"Tell me," Trip said, his voice unnaturally steady.  
  
"I think she was the one in the car," Trip's father said.  
  
Trip's shoulders collapsed; his entire body lost its stiffness.  
  
"I'm sorry, Trip," his father said, leaving the room.  
  
Trip began to breathe hard.  
  
Lux was gone.  
  
She wasn't just scorning him and locking herself in her house. She was dead and she was never coming back.  
  
Slowly, shakily, Trip got out of his bed and pulled on a pair of pants. He wobbled out to the front door and stepped out onto his front lawn. He collapsed to his knees in the direction of the Lisbon house; he was a worshiper and it was his holy temple. Leaning back his head, he screamed one word into the early-morning sky.  
  
"LUX!!"  
  
For the first time since he was a little boy, Trip Fontaine buried his face in his hands and sobbed. 


	4. Drowning For You

A/N: Holy crap, a new chapter. Nearly a year after I thought I'd finished it. I had random inspiration that would not let me rest. Actually, I pretty much took Starlight Pixiedust's idea (which has honestly been floating around in my head for the past year) and ran with it (see the review page). As always, none of these characters are mine, but Josh Hartnett was awfully foxy as Mr. Fontaine...  
  
Trip  
  
Chapter 4: Drowning for You  
  
Three months later...  
  
Trip could feel himself sinking, surrounded by darkness. Which was an odd feeling, considering the euphoria and light that usually accompanied his frequent dates with Mary Jane. Usually he felt, well, high. Floating. Not weighed down as if a fifty-pound boulder were tied to him. Maybe it was the combination of about three joints and half a bottle of gin, the finding of which (the gin, not the joints) was no surprise, considering that his father and Donald drank often and while they didn't outright condone Trip's partaking in a drink or two, they didn't exactly lock up their liquor cabinet, either.  
  
Or maybe it was the joints, the gin, and any member of the cocktail of other drugs he'd ingested. Maybe it was all of them. He couldn't think clearly enough to remember every single thing he'd taken. The guy behind the school that day had been more than helpful. What had his name been? Tom. That was his name.  
  
Wonderful, Fontaine, Trip thought, you can remember the fucking name of the asshole who sold you the goddamn things, but you can't remember what the hell they were.  
  
Trip moved his arms and his brain registered a slight shock as he realized that his arms were moving through water.  
  
What am I doing in water? How did I get in water? I only went out in the backyard to sit by the pool…or in the pool…or on a raft…I don't remember…  
  
Suddenly the darkness broke. He had opened his eyes. He hadn't realized that they were closed. Instead of complete black, he could see soft blue all around him. The blue rippled, and hazily Trip thought of someone's eyes. Someone he had cared about.  
  
Lux's eyes. They're that color. That blue…with the ripples of light…  
  
He closed his eyes again. He could feel something blowing across his back, making it cold, making him shiver.  
  
Wind. That's what it is. Wind. Why am I half in water and half in the wind? The wind...it reminds me of...Homecoming. Lux. It was a little windy that night.  
  
He was suddenly aware of muffled voices calling his name.  
  
"Trip!"  
  
"Trip! Are you all right?"  
  
"He's not answering. Trip! Answer us, please!"  
  
The water he was lying in was disturbed. It sloshed over his back, giving him a little protection from the wind.  
  
"Trip? TRIP?"  
  
He was all of a sudden gliding through water and feeling the coldness transfer from his back to his front.  
  
"Trip? Talk to me, Trip, please!"  
  
"Is he breathing?"  
  
"I don't know. Call the ambulance!"  
  
Trip felt skin graze his lips, and then an intermittent pressure on his chest.  
  
"Come on, Trip! Breathe!"  
  
The voice swore softly. Trip felt pressure on his mouth, and then the pressure on his chest. He was then strangely and acutely aware of sirens in the distance. Strange because the sound of everything else had been so muted and muffled.  
  
"Are they here yet? Goddamnit, why don't they HURRY?"  
  
"They're coming, they're coming."  
  
"They're here! Get him in there, quick!"  
  
The voices, the sirens, and all the other sounds around him merged into one dull roar and muted.  
  
And thus Trip's world went completely black and silent. 


	5. The Suicide Room

A/N: You know the drill.  
  
Trip  
  
Chapter 5: The Suicide Room  
  
He woke up in complete white. It was like waking up from a bad dream: gradually, the blackness slowly gave way to light and he felt stiff and paralyzed. He looked around and realized that the room he was in was not actually as stark and white as he thought it was. The walls were a pale yellow, made paler by the sunlight streaming in through the large window on his right. There was a vase of flowers on the table on his left. There was no one in his room. No parent to be consoled, no one crying, overjoyed to see him awake at last.  
  
The door to his room opened, and in stepped a slightly-built, petite, brunette nurse. She smiled--a wide, toothy smile--and Trip briefly wondered exactly how private these hospital rooms were.  
  
Proves your thought processes haven't been shot to shit, he thought.  
  
"Oh, so you're finally awake, Mr. Fontaine," the nurse said brightly.  
  
"How long have I been out?"  
  
"Two days or so. At some points you would sit straight up in bed and start jabbering on about something, but that might have just been the half- coma version of sleeptalking." Off of Trip's blank look, she added, "You don't remember anything, do you?"  
  
"You said 'half-coma.'"  
  
"Well, yes. With all those drugs and all that alcohol in your system, you should be grateful that you weren't all the way under. Or dead. What made you take all that stuff, anyway?"  
  
Trip shifted in the bed. "I don't know. Well, usually I just...smoke...some pot...but usually never combined with...that much...other stuff. I mean...I've done pot and booze at the same time before, but never so much to land me in the hospital."  
  
"They didn't just find pot and booze in you, you know."  
  
"Yeah, but I can't remember everything else I took."  
  
"Were you depressed or something?"  
  
"Why would I be depressed?"  
  
"Well, lots of things make people depressed. Bad things happen to them. Someone close to them dies--"  
  
"Who ever said anything about someone dying?"  
  
The nurse studied him for a while. "Someone you cared about died."  
  
"How would you know?"  
  
"I can tell just by the way you reacted to my statement. Who was it? When was it?"  
  
Trip sighed. "A couple months ago...this girl...her sisters...they killed themselves. I...was with the girl...once...but I had been in love with her for a while."  
  
"Are you talking about the Lisbon girls?"  
  
"Yeah. How'd you know?"  
  
"Well, besides the fact that it made the local news, the youngest one was brought here last summer when she tried to kill herself." The nurse's expression registered a sudden realization. "If I remember correctly, this was the room she stayed in. I was her nurse as well."  
  
The nurse turned and headed for the door. "If you need anything, my name is Jennifer," she said.  
  
The door to Trip's room closed. He blew out his breath.  
  
How goddamn creepy is this? I end up in the same room Cecilia did when she tried to kill herself. Except I didn't try to kill myself, I just almost died. Or did I?  
  
The door opened again. Trip looked over, expecting to see Jennifer, but it was just his father, looking disheveled and worn-out. He brightened considerably when he saw that his son was awake.  
  
"Trip!"  
  
"Dad?"  
  
"Who else? Wow, I'm...glad you're...awake."  
  
The conversation was quickly becoming awkward.  
  
"Dad, I...I'm sorry..."  
  
"Sorry for what?" Mr. Fontaine asked with false cheeriness.  
  
"About...this."  
  
"Well, bad things happen to the best of us, Trip."  
  
There was a long silence.  
  
"Did you do it because of that girl, Trip?" his father asked.  
  
"Honestly? I don't remember."  
  
"Because I know about the drugs, and I know that I'm not exactly the strictest person about alcohol..."  
  
"Dad...I said I don't remember a fucking thing about why I did it. I don't even remember taking the goddamn drugs or drinking the gin or smoking the joints. All I know is that I did it and I landed my ass in the hospital."  
  
"There's no need to be angry, Trip--"  
  
"I'm not angry. I just don't want you treating me like I'm a head case or something. I'm not mental, Dad. It was an accident. It was an accident."  
  
Trip's father licked his lips, began to say something, but thought better of it and kept his mouth closed.  
  
"Well, uh...I just...just wanted to see how you were doing, Trip. Visiting hours are nearly over, I guess, so I should be going."  
  
His father's statement sounded rehearsed, but Trip let it go without comment.  
  
"Okay. See you around, Dad."  
  
Mr. Fontaine left quietly. Trip lay back in the bed, stared at the ceiling, decided that the ceiling was boring, and closed his eyes. He wondered what crap they were going to serve him for dinner tonight. He wondered if the nurse Jennifer would be back to give him whatever he needed. But most of all, he wondered if it had really been an accident. He honestly tried to work it out in his mind as an accident, but he had ended up in "The Suicide Room," the moniker his mind had devised for Cecilia's old room. People did not end up in "Suicide Rooms" because of accidental overdoses.  
  
And then it came back to him as clear as day. He could remember the long days after Lux's suicide: sitting in his room, coming up with ways to join her, until his creativity ran out. He had actually had no real desire to die, just...a longing to be with Lux, wherever that was. And then one day, his desire to be with her mutated into a real desire to die. None of his old pleasures held any excitement for him anymore. So, on that fateful day, he had smoked a joint. And another. And another. And then he had gotten into the liquor cabinet and gulped down the half bottle of gin that remained. He then went up into his room and found the assorted baggies of drugs. He mixed some of them together and downed those with some more alcohol. Then he had gone out into the backyard to lie down on a raft in the pool and float around for a while. At some point, when he had nearly passed out, he fell off the raft and landed facedown in the pool. He passed out completely as the ambulance arrived.  
  
Trip swallowed hard.  
  
I...I tried to kill myself.  
  
It had been the first, but it would not be the last, time. 


End file.
